


Sehnsucht

by Duckyboos



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, BAMF Castiel, Dark, Dean Plays Guitar, Hurt Castiel, Like seriously dark, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Slow Burn, Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:43:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6180595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duckyboos/pseuds/Duckyboos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raised as his uncle’s very own attack dog from a painfully young age, Castiel knows how to fight. Knows all the ways to make someone hurt. He doesn’t think twice about the damage that he’s been commanded to inflict on countless bodies over the years. At least, not until he meets the man with green eyes and the guitar, and the beautiful voice that gives Castiel a completely different reason to fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So. This probably isn't a good idea. Not when I have so much on my plate, plus a couple of promised fics, but I've been having a mental block recently, and I decided to start writing this instead. Please don't hate me.  
> More tags will be added as I write.
> 
> Based on one of my favourite movies, Unleashed. (Jet Li. Unf.)
> 
> Also, 'Sehnsucht' is a German noun roughly translated as "longing", "pining", "yearning", or "craving", although there isn't a true translation that does it justice as it describes a deep emotional state.

He’s getting blood all over his uncle’s nice suit. Crimson soaking through white. Normally, his uncle would be shouting at him, displeasure etched into the twist of his mouth, disgust evident in his tone.

It’s okay tonight though, because he did good. His uncle said so.

Not that he doesn’t usually do good. But today – for reasons that Castiel doesn’t really understand - his uncle is unusually jovial. He bought Castiel a cheeseburger on the way back, and even though Castiel could feel the sticky itch of drying blood on his cheek, he ate the burger so fast that his uncle and his two lackeys nearly choked on their laughter.

The blood isn’t his.

It never is.

Arm around Castiel’s shoulder, his uncle leans in close. “I’m proud of you, boy.”

There’s a man standing across the room, flanked by his uncle’s lackeys. His face is long and pinched and he has a voice like tearing paper.

“He’s good.” The man says. His suit is gray, a shade darker than his pallid skin. “How did you train him so well?”

His uncle ruffles Castiel’s hair. It’s getting long again. If Castiel keeps being good, maybe he’ll get taken to that nice place where the kind lady ran her hands through his hair and talked to him about her holidays as she snipped away. Castiel liked it there. It smelled pretty. Pretty like the ladies who all cooed and fussed over him and called him handsome.

“Get ‘em young enough and the possibilities are endless.”

Castiel knows that they’re talking about him. Like he isn’t there. His uncle does that a lot. It’s okay. Castiel is in another world; one far removed from this dank warehouse with its shadows and echoes.

He can’t wait to crawl onto his bed and sleep. Maybe tonight he’ll dream.

Either sensing Castiel’s lethargy or perhaps just wanting rid of him for the night – the latter is more likely – his uncle releases him and gestures for one of his men to come over.

“Put him to bed, but give him a wash down first. Can’t have him making a mess of his cage with all that blood.”

“Yes sir.” It’s the larger one of the two that responds first, grin on his face that makes Castiel feel uneasy, makes the burger in his stomach roll. A few years ago Castiel gave him – Uriel, his name is – the scar that splits his left eyebrow in two. He wasn’t nice to Castiel before that, but now he’s unnecessarily cruel. He crooks a finger, “Come with me, little Cassie.”

Castiel doesn’t bother sending a pleading look in his uncle’s direction. He can already tell by the displacement of cool air beside him that his uncle’s interest is no longer with him, but instead on the stranger, who gives Castiel a pointed smirk as he dutifully does as he’s commanded.

He doesn’t remember how to do anything else.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update has taken so long. RL got in the way for a while there. Thank you for all your wonderful and encouraging comments, much appreciated.

Dean is in love.

It’s a little pathetic, really.

Love at first sight has no place beyond cheesy romance novels where the lead male character has long flowing hair and issues with his shirt buttons.

And yet here he is.

Staring – possibly drooling – definitely embarrassing himself, but it’s hard to care when she’s absolute perfection, with curves in all the right places, and it’s making his legs shake and his fingers ache with the need to reach out and touch her divine body.

She’s a gorgeous cherry red Gibson SG standard from 1969, with dual humbucker pickups, two volume and two control knobs, and a goddamn maestro vibrato tailpiece.

Fucking beautiful.

“Lovely isn’t she?”

Dean doesn’t – physically can’t – tear his eyes away to address the sales assistant properly. By way of response he simply ‘hmms’. Maybe a little more dreamily than he intends, but the guy must understand, must get idiots like Dean all the time.

“Do you want to play her?”

Now that _does_ get Dean’s attention.

 

***

 

Ten minutes later sees Dean tucked into a corner near the back of the shop, sitting on a leather stool with the sexiest thing that’s ever been in his lap. And that’s including the stripper from Atlanta who may well have been the hottest night of his life.

He spends a few minutes – probably a _few too many_ minutes – spooling through the music catalogue in his mind trying to think of a song worthy to play on her – can’t be any old shit – before he arrives at one and begins to play the pre-chorus of _‘Ramble on’_.

He easily gets lost in the familiar melody and before he realizes it, one song is melting into two, is melting into three and four and five. By the time he comes up for air after playing through a large chunk of Zeppelin’s back catalogue, hours or days could have passed. It’s still light outside, but that isn’t much of a clue.

However, there is now another person in the shop; a dude who’s standing stock still in front of the glass-topped counter, just staring at Dean, an unreadable expression on his face.

A quick glance about allows Dean to discover that it’s just him and the guy alone in the entire place; the sales assistant has disappeared off somewhere – probably out back with another customer, or on his break or whatever, but there’s something uneasy spiking the air that tells Dean it’s not that simple.

Dean tries for a smile; the one that makes old women fan themselves like they’re in Pride and Prejudice and younger ones want to climb him like a tree.

Nothing. The guy doesn’t respond in any visible way. He still looks _off,_ like awkward, but not threatening.

Just weird.

He’s wearing an oversized olive sweater with more holes in it than the plot of the fourth Lethal Weapon movie and a plain pair of black pants. His dark hair is a complete mess, but it’s kind of endearing in a bizarre way. His could-be handsome face is hidden beneath haphazard smudges of dirt.

It’s entirely possible that the guy is homeless or lost, so Dean tries for speech this time. “Hey.”

The stranger flinches; a stray dog unused to a kind voice. It twists and pulls at something behind Dean’s ribcage, hot and sharp. Like someone threw a dart at his chest.

Dean perseveres. “Are you okay, man? Are you lost?”

Nothing.

“Alright. Um. Do you like guitars?” He lifts the one in his lap up a little.

A slight nod.

“Okay. Do you want me to play something else whilst we wait for the sales dude to come back?”

A more emphatic nod.

Right. “Any requests?”

Nothing again.

Dean thinks for a moment. “You look like a Scorpions guy to me.” Then he starts to play the opening notes of _‘Send Me an Angel’_.

Partway through the chorus, he looks up. The dude has shuffled closer, tatty sleeves pulled over his knuckles, and he’s watching Dean’s fingers move across the strings with the kind of rapt attention most people reserve for the eight wonders of the world.

Or a really good lay.

Dean knows how he feels. The first time he’d heard a guitar he’d completely fallen in love too.

When he’s played a couple of Scorpions songs, he moves on to Metallica. _‘Nothing Else Matters’_ is one of the first songs that he taught himself to play on guitar. It’s a bizarre kind of comfort for him; perhaps it will be for this guy too.

Unless he’s seen Some Kind of Monster and now hates Metallica.

Dean’s not exactly a strong singer, so he isn’t sure what provokes him to start softly singing – beyond the desire to comfort the guy, perhaps put them on an equally awkward footing – but he does it anyway.

The guy’s eyes – big and blue and awed – flick to Dean’s, before dropping to his mouth. Watching his lips move like he can’t quite believe the sounds that Dean is making.

Dean’s had plenty of guys staring at his mouth before. Usually followed by dirty words that Dean enjoys living up to. After all, he’s a people pleaser. But this is different.

This isn’t lust or love or admiration, it’s sheer, bone-crushing reverence. A religious experience for someone who may not believe in God, but is seriously beginning to consider the merits of a holy deity.

Dean’s never felt anything like it. Never been looked at or listened to with anything close to this kind of veneration. It makes his pulse race, heart hammering desperately in his chest like it’s trying to escape. A trickle of sweat works its way from the nape of his neck under his white shirt, follows the path of his vertebrae.

The whole experience is agonizingly intense. Significant in a way that Dean can’t quite put a finger on yet.

The song eventually – what feels like eons later – comes to its natural end and the guy seems to audibly snap out of his trance. Instantly he’s moving backwards with a feline-like grace that raises even more questions in Dean’s mind. He’s quite clearly panicked; caught out somehow, but he still sidesteps all of the displays without even coming close to brushing against anything. As if he’s effortlessly cognizant of his own body and the space he takes up in any given area.

It’s a level of self-awareness that not many people have.

There’s still no sign of any customers or the sales assistant so Dean licks his lips, throat dry, and tries once more for speech. “My name’s Dean. What’s yours?”

“…Dean.” The guy repeats in a surprisingly deep voice, like he’s tasting it on his tongue. It’s the first thing he’s said in this entire interaction. Dean tries – and fails – not to read too much into that.

“Yeah.” Dean smiles. A genuine one this time. He gets a tentative one in return.

The guy looks like there’s a reply on the tip of his tongue, when there’s a series of loud crashes from the back and several burly men come bursting through the ‘staff only’ door.

His new friend recoils even further away from Dean; a burnt hand yanking back from a flame.

A graying man in an expensive suit comes out behind the muscle, face beet red and apparently extremely angry. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Castiel?” Globs of spittle mist the air like a fine spray and Dean is on his feet before he can even think.

He has enough presence of mind to put the guitar down somewhere safe before he goes to move towards the group who have now formed a tight circle around the guy – Castiel.

His eyes catch Dean’s and he must click on to his intentions because immediately he’s shaking his head, blue eyes wide again, but not with awe this time.

It’s fear. But not fear for himself.

Fear for Dean.

Dean stops in his tracks and stays still and just watches, ready and willing to jump in if he has to. He’d almost certainly have his ass handed to him, but he’ll never be one of those types who just stands by and watches whilst someone else gets hurt.

“We had to take care of it ourselves in there! I mean, what the fuck are you even for, eh?” The guy grabs the neck of Castiel’s ratty sweater in a meaty fist, “I put clothes on your back and food in your belly and this is how you repay me!”

Castiel doesn’t say anything, just allows the abuse to continue as he stares imploringly at Dean. There’s no sheen of unshed tears in his eyes, just a hint of embarrassment. Like he’s ashamed. Like he’s mortified that Dean has to witness this, and to Dean, that’s almost as troublesome as the verbal abuse that the fuckstick is doling out.

The bastard shakes Castiel, “Are you listening to me you useless piece of shit?”

Dean’s fists clench at his side. One of the lackey’s turns to follow the direction of Castiel’s gaze and spots Dean. “Uh, boss.”

“ _What_.” He turns, but doesn’t let go of Castiel. As soon as he sees Dean, he plasters on a fake smile. It’s reptilian in nature and Dean fights against the shudder working its way up his spine, “Don’t mind us. Just a little family dispute.”

“Some family.” Dean scoffs before his brain is fully engaged. The lack of a brain-to-mouth filter is a Winchester curse. Well. It seems to have skipped Sammy, but that’s not the only way the tall freak is lucky in the gene department.

The cold smile doesn’t leave the suit’s face. “Let’s finish this discussion at home, shall we boys? Nobody to stick their oar in there.”

Shit.

If they’re willing to speak to Castiel like this in public, then Dean doesn’t even want to imagine what happens behind closed doors. Goddamn it. Dean should have just let them chew Castiel out here. At least if things had gotten out of hand, he would have had an ally. Now because of Dean’s stupidity and thoughtlessness Castiel could be subjected to absolutely anything.

Dean would never know.

A second distressing thought eclipses the already-painful first one as Castiel is steered none-too-gently out of the shop and away from Dean. They’ll probably never see each other again. He has no way of tracking Castiel down beyond his unusual first name – if it’s even his real first name – and he doubts that there’s much of a paper trail anyway; no social security number or address.

The door slams shut with a finality that Dean feels to his bones and he’s left standing in the guitar shop alone.

God-fucking-dammit.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not really happy with this chapter, but I'm going away until Monday and I wanted to post something before I went, so this may be subject to a little editing in the future.  
> Thank you for all the kind words :)

_Dean._

With his nice smile and kind soul and beautiful voice.

Bone splinters beneath flesh where Castiel’s right fist connects. The skin over his own knuckles splits with the force of the punch. He doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel anything past the warmth in his stomach.

_Dean._

Somebody somewhere is yelling about paying up.

It’s white noise compared to the calming, tender melody he can still hear.

_Dean._

It’s not until he’s pulled back by the scruff of his neck that he even realizes his uncle had been shouting at him to stop.

“What the Hell is it with you today? First the guitar shop, now this?” The rough grasp on the back of his neck shakes him. It’s not his uncle – he’s standing across from Castiel, face twisted in displeasure – so it’s most likely Uriel holding him.

For the first time, Castiel looks down at the nameless, faceless person he’d been set on. Another ‘bastard who needs to learn to either pay up or pay the consequences’ – his uncle’s words. His entire face is a swollen lump of purples and reds. Like that time Bartholomew got stung by a wasp. Castiel had tried and failed not to laugh at the sight. For that little indiscretion – as his uncle referred to it – Castiel had lost one of his precious books.

He only has one left now. He really hopes that his uncle doesn’t take it away. It’s his favorite, even if he doesn’t understand all of the words.

“Sorry uncle.” He murmurs, even though he’s not. Not really.

His uncle blows his cheeks out like he does right before he decides how to punish Castiel. As if he’s not been relishing the idea of it all day.

“What am I going to do with you Castiel?”

Castiel may not know much, standing there in the backroom of a jewelry shop, blood dripping from his knuckles, but he knows enough to recognize a question that doesn’t need an answer.

Another sigh. “Just put him in the car. No supper tonight.”

On cue, Castiel’s stomach rumbles.

“Do you need help sorting out the payment boss?” Ezekiel asks.

Castiel’s uncle waves a dismissive hand and looks down at the crumpled form of the man Castiel had been ordered to ‘make hurt’. “I don’t think he’s going to try and do a runner, now is he?”

Castiel frowns. Surely that’s a good thing? Surely that’s what his uncle wanted?

Apparently not.

 

***

 

Ezekiel and Uriel bundle him into the back seat of the Rolls. Castiel stares out of the window, resolutely ignoring their jibes and sniggers. Or at least giving off the impression that he is. The street is relatively quiet; a few people doing some last minute grocery shopping before the shops shut for the evening.

It seems so mundane. Castiel wishes he was one of those people. He’s never been into a shop for a paper or milk or anything that isn’t directly related to his skills and his uncle’s desire to use them to them for his own ends.

“Golden boy is in trouble.” Uriel grins, dangerous and dark. He slams the door so hard that the whole car shakes. Goes around to get in the driver’s side.

“Shoulda listened to Unca Zachy, little Cassie,” Ezekiel teases from the front passenger seat.  “Now you’re gonna be sent to bed without your dinner like the bad dog you are.”

It’s not the first time that they’ve referred to him as a dog, but each time Castiel wonders if it’s coming closer to being their last. He wonders if he’ll always be this way. Helplessly obedient. Just like the dog the lackeys think of him as.

He knows the answer to that of course.

He can’t remember a time when this wasn’t his life. Can’t remember a time when he wasn’t just an instrument of destruction for his uncle to wield.

There must have been one. He faintly remembers the scent of lilac and a soft voice that could have been a sister or a mother before it became overlaid and tainted with the iron tang of blood and the screams of those he’s hurt.

Any fight – beyond the useful-to-his-uncle kind – has long since been drained out of him through conditioning, starvation and training. He needs to be good so he gets to keep his book, so he gets cheeseburgers and haircuts; his world narrowed to action and reward or action and consequence.

He knows this. Knows it better than he knows his own name. So why hasn’t he been good today? Why not follow his uncle’s instructions in the guitar shop? All he had to do was count to ten – which he knows how to do, despite Uriel’s taunting to the contrary – before following his uncle and the others into the back.

_Dean_.

Dean. So striking and unaware. Anyone could have snuck up on him and hurt him when he was there, lost in his own world of beautiful music. There had been something mesmerizing about Dean’s lack of mindfulness; a kind of freedom that is far outside of Castiel’s reach.

Ezekiel and Uriel are still making jokes at Castiel’s expense, so he tunes them out and instead tries to remember some of the words that Dean had sung. He recalls the melody, but the lyrics are a jumble in his mind, a clutter of confused sentences and misremembered words, so enraptured he’d been with the way Dean’s mouth had formed them.

Dean’s eyes are green. The same shade of green that lingers in his memories along with the lilac. He clings to it, tries to pull it out of the shadows into the light.

It disintegrates between his fingertips, just like always.

“…a burger. With all the sides,” Uriel is saying, eyes on Castiel in the mirror, watching, waiting for a reaction. “I can’t wait. I might even get two.”

Castiel shrugs, aiming for indifference, even though his stomach aches with hunger. He only ate yesterday, understands in an abstract way that he doesn’t deserve to eat today, not after how bad he’s been. It’s the rules.

The rules have always been there. A constant. Castiel has no cause for complaint. He knows this.

And yet.

_And yet._

He broke the rules today.

If he hadn’t, he never would have met Dean.

***

 

As per his uncle’s instructions, Castiel is sent to bed without any food, but mercifully he doesn’t deign to inflict any other punishment on Castiel. At least not for now. Castiel is hosed down, given his usual scratchy towel to dry off with and then handed a pair of sleep pants. They’re his least favorite out of the three pairs in current rotation as they’re too short for him and the elastic is nearly completely gone in the waistband.

In theory, one problem should cancel out the other, but it just results in him waking up after a fitful night’s sleep with his pants bunched around his calves.

Uriel grins down at him and slams the door on top of his cage shut. Padlocks it even though there’s no need. He’s whistling as he goes to re-join the others and his uncle in the office.

Castiel settles down cross-legged on his pallet – he used to have a mattress, was gifted one after his uncle was particularly pleased with him, until Bartholomew pointed out that Castiel was oversleeping far too much – and picks up his book.

It’s thin and the once shiny cover is a little duller now. But it’s _his._

He opens it, flicks through. His hand smoothes over each of the precious pages in turn. Pages which are crinkled from the damp, words fuzzy and smudged from Castiel’s fingers repeatedly tracing over the black ink.

In a stilted, quiet voice he begins to read to himself.

“Lit-tle Nutbow- _brown_ Hare, who was go-eng to bed, held on tig-t – _tigt_ – tight? -- to Big Nutbrown Hare’s very long e-yars.” He turns to the next page. “He want-ed to be soo-ure that Big Nutbrown Hare was luh-li,” he can feel his cheeks heating up as he struggles with the long word, that familiar feeling of shame lancing through him, burning hot and humiliating. He should be able to read this by now. It’s a book for babies and he’s fully grown. On more than one occasion, Uriel and Bartholomew have listened in on him reading his bedtime story and laughed at him through the bars of his cage.

Dean wouldn’t laugh at him.

Dean would sit with him and help him. Maybe if he was good, Dean would read it to him so Castiel could hear it in his kind voice. Hear how it’s supposed to sound.

He'd like that. He's never heard it read aloud properly.

He lies down on the rough surface of his makeshift bed, book still in hand, and twists awkwardly onto his side as he snuggles under his threadbare blanket, pulling it around his shoulders. He stares at the drawing of the two rabbits together, manages a faint smile. “G-giss how muh-mutsh I low-ve you.”

_Dean._


End file.
